


The Cigarette Stench of Betrayal

by CertifiedPissWizard



Category: The Bifrost Incident - The Mechanisms (Album), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Noir AU, Other, am i putting anachronisms in here yes because i do what i want, lyf but a pi what crimes will they commit, lyf's gender is dame, me actually editing and using an outline for once, there will probably be poly mechs because i say so, throwing shade at the rich and cops, yes this is a noir au of the bifrost incident don't @ me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23449747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CertifiedPissWizard/pseuds/CertifiedPissWizard
Summary: It’s hardly a safe place to live, or a kind one. When the rain beats down it beats down hard, and people drown under it and whiskey and smells of desperation and misery that suffuse the air. The good thing about it is that there’s plenty of work for dames like Lyf.Lyfrasir Edda is a PI in the city of New Midgard, and a good one if they say so themself. It's a simple life, going through, paying off their debts. Then Odin comes in offering a job about mass disappearances from a train. She thinks the gang called the Mechanisms is behind it. Lyf thinks they're innocent, and to prove that they'll have to find the guilty party themself, getting help from the Mechanisms themselves.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40





	The Cigarette Stench of Betrayal

New Midgard isn’t really anybody’s dream city to live in. Yes, there are high, gleaming spires overhead, catching the light and reflecting it down. The streets look clean, too. The storefronts seem bright, crisp and new, and none of the buildings seem old and decrepit. There are trees and parks filled with mothers and children. The only reason people think it looks like that is because the whole area around it is a separate city of its own. Nobody is quite sure what its actual name is, because everyone refers to it as part of New Midgard. The other name for it is confusing, and nobody really knows where it came from. Some people call it the Bifrost, though. There are rumors it’s because of some comparison to a religion that some of the people hold in secret. The Bifrost those people worship is supposed to be a realm of chaos. The whole story behind its second name is purely apocryphal, but the sentiment is almost horrifically accurate.

The streets are, more often than not, just as likely be filled with gunshots as people going about their business. It’s hardly a safe place to live, or a kind one. When the rain beats down it beats down hard, and people drown under it and whiskey and smells of desperation and misery that suffuse the air. The good thing about it is that there’s plenty of work for dames like Lyf. Lyf’s the sort of person who loves crawling into other peoples’ business and doesn’t love the idea of being a bootlicker to do it. They ended up getting their office a while ago, got a bit in debt to do it. The deposit was big, and so’s their monthly rent. Now, of course, they’re stuck doing what they can to pay it off, no matter how much they aren’t actually wanting to do the work. Sometimes they go weeks doing nothing but investigating people for jealous lovers. The real stuff that they’re interested in is figuring out the mysteries around the gang that goes by the Mechanisms. It isn’t even a solely monetary interest, although there is a pretty hefty reward for anyone who can take them in. Lyf is, of course, not a bounty hunter, but that doesn’t make the idea less tempting.

They’d keep going along, searching through the information they have to try and find clues, but then she walks in. Old lady Odin, one of the wealthiest broads in town. She swans in wearing a long blue silk dress that’s very out of place in this part of the city. She’s got furs, too. Not even knocking or saying hello she strolls on over to Lyf’s desk, placing her hands down on it, trying to look attractive probably. Unfortunately for her, Lyf isn’t attracted to wealthy fucks who build empires on the backs of working people. “I have a job for you, Inspector.” She practically purrs out her words, and Lyf hates her all the more for it. If they weren’t in debt... They are, though, so they gesture her to keep going. The broad lights up a cigarette instead.

“I have a no smoking lease. You’ll make me lose my deposit.” Yes. Lyf is lying, but she’s barely said anything and the distant hatred they held for her has already become so terribly personal. She scowls at that, pulls out her pocketbook, and puts a good thousand dollars on the table.

“For your deposit. So. The job. Someone stole quite a bit from my train. All of the gold and bismuth off the walls, the luggage, the valuables and safe, and worst of all. Somebody made all of the people on my train disappear. As you can imagine, for someone who runs a train company, this is quite a problem. The Ratatosk Express was supposed to be a way for people to travel in luxury, without needing to rub elbows with people who might be uncouth.” Lyf’s mind fills in: poor people. “I need somebody to find out what happened, and I need it done quietly. I’ve heard you might be the dame for the job, since I think that the Mechanisms are involved.”

“You might be right.” She places a cube on the table. “A quite literal black box, I see.” They pick it up, turn it around, look it over from all angles. “How does it work? I’ve never seen anything like this before.” It looks similar to some of the things that Odin’s corporate empire has put out in the past, but Lyf’s never had the money to make any of that matter, in the end.

“Like this.” She sounds terse, but shows them how to work it.

“Time to talk money.”

“How. Plebeian.”

“Yes, but me being ‘plebeian’ pays the bills.” She puts more money on their desk, a giant stack of hundred dollar bills.

“I hear your sort want half up front. Here’s half. Find out what happened to my train, Inspector. I can make your life very difficult if you don’t.” She turns and leaves a trail of smoke, perfume, and the sound of footsteps behind her. She also leaves scuff marks behind on the floorboards. They’re definitely going to need that thousand to make up for the loss of their deposit. They stretch for a minute, then they grab their notepad and get started looking through the footage on the blackbox. It’s going to be a long night, they think with dark certainty. It’s going to be a long job, and that isn’t something that they’re guessing on. It’s something that they simply know at this point.

They’re up late into the night watching over the footage- same with most of the next day and the day after. Each and every second gets scrubbed over, bit by bit. Not a single second isn’t looked at in close detail, even though some of them are looked at in sleep deprived detail. That’s beside the point, though. The point is this. They look at the footage of this opulent train and see people who have more money than Lyf could ever hope to earn in a lifetime. They watch these people scorn the people serving them drinks and food, dismissing them with a glare and scowl. They sit there and watch the head waiter, who appears to be names Sigyn weave her way through. The name Sigyn is familiar, of course. The issue is that Lyf isn’t sure. Some with the name Loki. Thor is a familiar name, but it’s one obviously placed. It’s the name of one of Odin’s competitors.

Of course Odin wouldn’t have done anything to risk her glorious train. That would be stupid and irresponsible, and why would she hire a PI if that was the case, anyways? Thor could be a suspect, but that’s unlikely. He hasn’t made any public appearances in a while, and those public appearances tend to correspond with boosts in stock prices. Maybe it could be the Mechanisms, like Odin thinks, but this doesn’t have their fingerprints on it. Both literally and metaphorically.

There isn’t the sort of destruction and messy death one usually associates with actions taken by the Mechanisms. Besides, their typically shady moral code tends to have a soft spot for those in customer service. Lyf’s even pulled up newspapers from the time around the disappearance a few weeks ago, bribed their way into police reports regarding suspected actions of the gang. None of it points that way at all. That leads to the questions of why Sigyn and Loki sound like such familiar names and why old lady Odin is very intent on the idea of the Mechanisms being behind it.

The broad couldn’t be saying it for publicity. She has all the publicity she could ever need or want. Wouldn’t even be a good way to stave off liability, either. People don’t just disappear, so nobody would think that this was some plot to get rid of her biggest competitors. Maybe she had past bad experiences with the Mechanisms? Lyf has a good knowledge of the cases the Mechanisms were behind though. Time goes from a few days to a week, and they don’t get any closer to figuring it out in the grand scheme of things. The Odin front isn’t leading into why she suspects the Mechanisms. The Thor front is a bust. Nobody else on the train seems suspicious, although nothing can be said of the engine room. There aren’t any cameras there that aren’t constantly glitched out in the recording.

So. Sigyn and Loki. Who are they? The names are terribly familiar, but Lyf can’t quite place them. They find themself looking through news articles, and calling in favors to look at police reports to try and find the names. Nothing’s quite clicking, though.

* * *

Odin walks in again,late in the evening, acting like she owns the place around nine days after hiring them, her hair done up in pearls and silver, red velvet gown, black lace shrug. She gives a semi-disgusted look at Lyf’s suit, which is one they’d been wearing for the past four days. “Have you found them yet, Inspector? Because that’s what I’m paying you for.” It’s not. She hired them to find out what happened to her train, and there’s something concerning about how she’s changed her tune so suddenly. “Where are the Mechanisms?” The people who aren’t behind this. If Lyf can’t talk her down they’ll end up chased by the cops for something that they actually aren't behind, though.

“You hired me to find out what happened, lady. Who are Sigyn and Loki? They’re familiar names, names I’ve definitely heard before while doing business. I can’t place where. I think that they’re very closely tied in to all of this.” It’s hard to tell in the dim light, because of course Odin came when it was late. She probably wanted to be dramatic. Odin seems to not look pleased at that question, though. This meeting, this job, it’s all starting to leave an oilslick feeling of unease inside them. “You hired me to find out what happened, and I think this might be connected.” She definitely doesn’t look pleased at that.

“I don’t know.” A lie. This meeting is leaving a bad feeling in the air, or that might just be the lack of airflow since the window’s closed. Either way, though, it doesn’t change the fact that every breath feels a bit more sour for it. “If you don’t think your job is to find the Mechanisms then keep the last payment for what you thought the jobs was and take this-” money on the table- “as payment to go find the Mechanisms. They’re behind what happened to my train.” Lyf nods, accepts the money even though they shouldn’t. The Mechanisms are innocent in this, and Lyf can’t just put innocent people in the line of fire for someone so powerful. Someone with definite secrets. She definitely isn’t behind what happened to the train, because why would she hire a PI in that case. That doesn't change the fact that they aren’t a big fan of this.

Odin leaves. Lyf sighs. It’s going to be another long night- this time at least it’s a lot more active than watching footage. They go to check their stack of newspapers, start pulling ones out with Odin’s company or Odin herself mentioned in them. It hardly qualifies as light reading when the stack weighs at least ten pounds, but Lyf decides to call it light reading anyways. They turn on the radio and get to work trying to divine every secret that they can from a few poorly written blurbs in newspapers and some tabloids that wouldn’t even be good for toilet paper.

They must fall asleep at some point, because next thing they know it’s morning. They can’t remember anything about their dream except that it wasn’t anything good. The wake up to the radio mentioning some familiar names though. Sigyn and Loki. Union leaders turned communists from the sound of it. They’ve apparently been suspected of corporate espionage in the past. They might be the sort to just make a train of rich snobs disappear, that doesn’t explain where everything and everyone went, though.

They start looking through the footage again, and nothing. It’s just people minding their own business and then static, and it’s all a blur. There’s only really one option when it comes down to it. They’ll have to find the Mechanisms and enlist their help in proving their group’s innocence in the matter. They really aren’t looking forward to this, especially because they’re practically telling that cash reward goodbye. Still. They can’t let people go down for something that they didn’t do. Lyf isn’t a cop.


End file.
